Sales

Reception and sales
Game Metacritic score
Guitar Hero 91/100 (PS2)[88]

Guitar Hero II 92/100 (PS2)[89]

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock 85/100 (360)[90]

Guitar Hero World Tour 85/100 (360)[91]

Guitar Hero 5 86/100 (360)[92]

Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s 69/100 (PS2)[93]

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith 70/100 (360)[94]

Guitar Hero: Metallica 84/100 (360)[95]

Guitar Hero Smash Hits 71/100 (PS2)[96]

Guitar Hero: Van Halen 64/100 (360)[97]

Guitar Hero: On Tour 71/100 (DS)[98]

Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades 72/100 (DS)[99]

Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits 70/100 (DS)[100]

Games in the Guitar Hero series have been generally well received by critics. The initial games were highly praised by reviewers. The transition from Harmonix to Neversoft was seen, initially, detrimental to the series; notably, Neversoft's first entry to the series Guitar Hero III was seen as being too difficult, with many difficult songs presenting players with "walls of notes" that the developers have since acknowledged was a problem.[105][106][107] Subsequent efforts in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero World Tour were seen to have some improvements, with Guitar Hero: Metallica considered to be a well-polished title and, at that time, the best Guitar Hero title Neversoft has produced.[108][109] Guitar Hero 5's improvements toward social gameplay were complemented by reviewers and considered a further improvement upon the series. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "An addictive videogame provides the illusion of musical mastery for even the least gifted:. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Tap, tap, tap."[110]

Upon release, the first game was seen as an unexpected hit, earning over $45 million with about 1.5 million copies sold. Guitar Hero II was significantly more successful, with over 1.3 million copies sold and sales over $200 million.Guitar Hero III, according to Activision, was the first single video game to sell more than $1 billion, with nearly 3.5 million copies sold during the first seven months of 2008. World Tour continued the series' high sales records with 3.4 million units sold in the United States during 2008. More than 60 million downloadable tracks have been purchases across the series as of February 2010.

Overall, the Guitar Hero series has sold more than 25 million units worldwide, earning US$2 billion at retail. The series is claimed by Activision to be the 3rd largest game franchise after the Mario and Madden NFL franchises, even though sales figures show Pokémon and Final Fantasy as 2 and 3, respectively, and Mario at 1.